Meghan Driscoll
FACULTY CANDIDATE
Postdoctoral Research Scientist
Cell Biology Department and Bioinformatics Department
University of Texas Southwestern Medical School
Seminar Information
Signaling is governed not only by the expression levels of molecules, but by their localization via mechanisms as diverse as compartmentalization in organelles, phase separation, and directed transport by motor proteins. Cell morphology likely also modulates the localization of signaling molecules, and recent advances in high-resolution light-sheet microscopy now allow imaging at the spatiotemporal resolution needed to capture the many undulations and quick dynamics of the 3D cell surface. However, these microscopes generate large datasets with detailed 3D movies that require dedicated computational pipelines. In this seminar, I will introduce u-shape3D, a computer graphics and machine-learning pipeline to probe molecular mechanisms underlying 3D cell morphogenesis. U-shape3D includes a generic cell morphological motif detector that automatically finds lamellipodia, filopodia, blebs and other cell extensions.
Meghan Driscoll is finishing her postdoctoral research in Gaudenz Danuser’s lab at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Her research focuses on investigating the functions of cell morphology. As a postdoc, she developed a workflow to analyze the coupling of cell morphology with intracellular signaling. This workflow uses techniques from machine learning and computer graphics to enable analysis of high-resolution light-sheet microscopy images of cells embedded in 3D microenvironments. As a Ph.D. student, she studied the interaction of amoeboid cells with simple fabricated substrates, such as cliffs, ridges, and ratchets. She received a B.S. in Physics from Harvey Mudd College and a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Maryland, College Park.